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Surprised it took so long to be honest. It was so good and unlike with other youtube alternative clients, you basically had almost 1:1 feature parity over the o
by mardifoufs 5y ago
Surprised it took so long to be honest. It was so good and unlike with other youtube alternative clients, you basically had almost 1:1 feature parity over the official app. Plus you had the option to disable almost all the recent UI changes easily and a sponsorblock integration.
It was much much more of a threat to Google than newpipe or less "normie" friendly alt clients, and it was getting too popular for it's own good. I'm wondering if the current Vance releases will keep working for a while, or if Google will try to target those too by breaking something in their backend.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoI was under the impression that Vanced was a cracked version of the official app. If that was the case then they deserve to be sued.
- stavros 5y agoWell, they only deserve to be sued in your ethical system. To me, adding features that I can't even get if I pay isn't unethical, it's commendable.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoI'm a NewPipe user. I just think distributing a cracked version of somebody else's app calls for being sued.
- stavros 5y agoDefine "cracked" here. Is it a crack to add a feature to an app, for example?
- Nexxxeh 5y agoNot grandparent poster, but I think the easiest definition would be: "Removing the revenue stream for the original app author through modification or bypass." Just because you're paying through advertising rather than cash doesn't make it any less of a crack or any less piracy.
- charcircuit 5y agoI have bought memberships and superchats just fine through Vanced. YouTube has many different revenue streams.
- wiseowise 5y agoIf you then distribute it yourself, and originally it's not open source - yes.
- dartharva 5y agoI'm glad everyone doesn't think the way you do.
- Dylan16807 5y agoAs long as we're throwing out anecdotes, I think anyone should be allowed to distribute content that was originally widely public and free. And to alter it, sure.
- galangalalgol 5y agoHaving come to adulthood in the 90s we all agreed that intellectual property was an oxymoron. It strikes me as odd people worry about the business model of mega corporations. Is it a sense of fairness? I have that instinct, but it doesn't apply to the likes of faang entities.
- stavros 5y agoYeah, I tend to agree. Those were different times, but computing was so much more interesting before everything was server-based subscriptions.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Having come to adulthood in the 90s we all agreed that intellectual property was an oxymoron. Having come to adulthood in the 90s, we absolutely did not all agree that.
- labster 5y agoAre you sure the people who disagree actually came to adulthood, or are they just adult-aged?
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Are you sure the people who disagree actually came to adulthood More than I am of those who don't.
- galangalalgol 5y agoI shouldn't try to speak for a whole generation, you are right. The background of being told it was legal to tape movies from tv and songs from the radio and trade them, as long as we didn't charge money, and then when the BBSs and then internet apeared being told those rules didn't apply anymore made many of us decide we were not responsible for technology invalidating the business model of corporations that shared so little with those whose creations they profited from. The legality of it meant little given its unenforceable nature.
- coconut08 5y agoreplace youtube app with photoshop and you quickly realize that obviously it is illegal to modify and distribute. just because it is free to use doesn't mean intellectual property laws and licenses don't apply to it. you can argue that you think that intellectual property laws are stupid, but it doesn't make it any less illegal.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nrabulinski 5y agoObligatory “pirating Adobe software is always morally right”
- mardifoufs 5y agoOh I don't disagree that Vanced was probably breaking a few copyright/IP laws so Google sending a C&D would be well within it's legal rights. But I'll just say that I enjoyed it while it lasted
- izacus 5y agoVanced was indeed a cracked version of official YouTube app.
- alexiaya 5y agoMany features existed in Vanced before YouTube pulled a bait and switch on users and put existing functionality such as background playback behind a paywall. Also, they explicitly refused to add support for things such as downloading videos, even though that also has perfectly valid non-piracy use cases. (The YouTube Premium download feature is bad anyway because videos downloaded that way are artificially DRM-protected when the original streams are DRM-free can be downloaded using something like yt-dlp.)
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoIf you buy a microwave and modify it, so it doesn't beep when it's done, and offer the modded version to your friends, do you deserve to be sued?
- AnonCoward4 5y agoIf you open up a shop where you do this (for free) I kind of think you ask to be sued. At any rate real world analoga often don't do the digital problems justice. PS.: I imply that the "beep" is the source of revenue of course, which is a bit hidden in your analogon.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoI have no idea why modding a microwave at a third-party service center would be illegal. Yes, the rules for digital should be changed to be more alike the physical world, especially regarding ownership, resales, lending/borrowing and modification.
- AnonCoward4 5y ago> I have no idea why modding a microwave at a third-party service center would be illegal. If you remove the source of revenue for a given product without consent of the manufacturer/developer of that product and do this in a professional fashion, you are inflicting severe damage to that manufacturer/developer of a product. The reason why digital problems are not easily transferred to the real world or back is in this example, that it costs the author of that mod zero time to do it for all people at once (developing time is fixed) and is accessible nearly instantly from everywhere. This is certainly not true for the microwave example. edit: replace owner with manufacturer/developer (of that product)
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoSo if a refill a printer cartridge (a revenue source), that's illegal? Clearly it's not: https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/250050-supreme-court-slaps-lexmark-cant-lock-cartridges-stop-refillers https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/250050-supreme-court...
- 0des 5y agoJust a nitpick, the word it's does not imply possession, you are looking for 'its'. If you cannot substitute your usage of it's with 'it is' then it is the wrong one to use.
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoEnglish spelling is so fucked up. Possessives normally have the apostrophe, except the possessive pronouns. Just because.
- disillusioned 5y agowont-fix
- spartanatreyu 5y agowont-fix or won't-fix?
- cercatrova 5y agoMore like won\'t-fix
- Biganon 5y agoSee also "whose", because "who's" would have made too much sense I guess
- sonicggg 5y agoI'm surprised they did not have a plan for this. I thought Vanced would be based in a more "rebel" country like Russia, which is what Sci-Hub does. A Cease and Desist letter from Google would be meaningless there. Were they trying to pull this off in the USA, or other Western countries?
- londons_explore 5y agoThe number of people willing to put many months work into a project like this, with substantial legal risk, and no possibility of getting paid money, is very small. And of that small set of people, the number who already live in Russia is even lower...
- j1elo 5y agoIs it necessary to actually live in Russia, though? If I ever managed a project like Vanced, or any other initiative that might trip a big company such as Google, I would definitely seek hosting on a country like Russia or similar, even though I am not there. That, and trying to run everything anonymously, not with my Github username. I'm curious, where exactly are the Cease and Desist letters delivered, when they get sent? To whatever contact email appears in the project's website, if any?
- fps_doug 5y agoIf you don't go through the hassles of anonymously signing up with the hoster in Russia, and also paying them anonymously, then there isn't much point in this. As soon as the server can be traced back to you (in a way that convinces the court) you're toast.
- stu2b50 5y agoIn the end, it's not like the devs made any money off of this. If they weren't already in a Russia-like country, then it's not exactly reasonable to relocate for your side project you offer for free.
- 5y ago
- charcircuit 5y agoBreaking Vanced would also break YouTube (read: be unable to show ads) for people whose YouTube app is outdated.
- coconut08 5y agohow strict is youtube about maintaining backwards compatibility with outdated apps/versions of android? do they ever break compatibility?
- charcircuit 5y agoYou do not need to frequently update the app to use youtube. For example with Vanced you may be using a several month old (modded) version of the app. >do they ever break compatibility? Yes, but I can't seem to easily find data on how often they do. I assume the "Currently installed versions will work just fine, until they become outdated in 2 years or so." is referring to how long they expect Google to keep compatibility with the latest version they used.
- tinus_hn 5y agoThey do, for instance here someone in 2017 tested that YouTube doesn’t work anymore on the original iPhone: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2017/01/04/does-the-original-iphone-still-work-ten-years-later-i-gave-it-a-go/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2017/01/04/does-the-orig...
- crtasm 5y ago> unlike with other youtube alternative clients, you basically had almost 1:1 feature parity over the official app I believe that's because unlike other alternative clients it is a modified version of the official app.